User blog:Edwin Shade/Forever Endeavor Continued
Please read [http://www.polytope.net/hedrondude/foreverendeavor.htm Forever Endeavor if you have not already. This will make the following continuation easier to understand.] Still Bentley never lost the hope that one day, albeit an extremely far away day, he would be freed from this life of making counters and resume a hopefully normal life. It had only been several hundred years, but it felt far more to him. It was of interest though that the millions and billions marks seemed to pass by quicker the longer he put the counters on the fourth counter, as each day seemed shorter in relation to the days he had already lived. One day however, when the fourth counter was nearing a hundred billion Bentley realized something he should have realized a long time ago, something that changed his outlook on the situation he had been in for the last eleven millennia. It was a thought that occurred to him as he contemplated what life must be like on the outside, as he glanced every so often at the window that had become all too familiar to him. While others wished that they might live but a few years longer, he had been granted the chance to live an astronomically long time, so long in fact he may as well regard it as endless ! If he were to put off enjoying himself for the sake of the distant release and few decades he would have of normal life, then he would be wasting the vast amount of time he had already been given in which much more could be accomplished. So from that day forth Bentley made a resolve to always discover something new about his environment, and not let a day go by in which there was an unexplored aspect of his confines with Compadre. Thinking back to the hallway of echoes incident Bentley laughed to himself. What was he thinking wading in dirty water ? He would no longer be content to stop when he had discovered something like the pool. but would always be searching for more. It was with this thought in mind that Bentley once more began creating a second hall of echoes, which would be completed in a little over two decades. The trick was to pick away at the wall as quickly as possible with a spoon Bentley stole from the food tray, and yet give no indication that anything unusual had taken place. Over the years Compadre had been more open to conversation, and was starting to eye Bentley more when he wandered towards the window of the room, as if knowing he was thinking about escaping. Despite this, Compadre never seemed tired of his lot in life, and began thumping the table authoritatively whenever Bentley slowed down or went to fast in putting on counters. Ah well, Bentley thought, 'as long as Compadre does not seal up this tunnel like the last I am satisfied.' The work on the tunnel continued, with progress being made quicker than ever thanks to Bentley's resourcefulness. By wresting a water pipe that appeared to have no water running through it from inside the wall he had a more effective implement than a mere spoon in making the tunnel, which had grown by now to a length of about 12 feet, almost the length of the original. A major difference between this tunnel and the prior one was that Bentley had increased the height of the tunnel until it he could stoop in it, which increased his leverage with the blunt water pipe and allowed progress to be made at such a fast rate that Bentley surmised he would be done in just a year, let alone twenty years ! So a year passed, and when Bentley had finished the tunnel he once more found himself in the hallway of echoes. "Hello-o-o-o-..." Bentley smiled to himself, recalling his childhood when he used to stand in a field near his house and shout out whatever came to mind, which then echoed off a small stone wall about 800 feet away. Those were the days in which he did not have to concern himself with making counters for thousands of years, and when there was variety in what he did. "It's me, Bentley-ey-ey-ey-..." "Ha-ha, Compadre can't get me here-re-r-*meow*" "Ha-" Bentley froze. What was that he had just heard ? "*meow*" There it was again, had he spoke to soon ? Could Compadre be at the entrance to the tunnel with that menacing look in his eyes, ready to close it all back again ? Slowly Bentley turned around, expecting the worst, yet... he saw nothing. As he turned back a shape in the shadows threw him aback, (for as he was used to monotony for so many centuries any irregularity seemed drastic). Bentley heard a voice say to him thus: "Greetings traveler of yonder, I see you weren't expecting me, but fear not. I am simply an amicable feline whose existence is to be doubted by many a physicist." Bentley didn't know what to say back, so he just said: "Oh ?" "Yes my humanoid brethren, 'oh' is right." The creature came into the light revealing it was just an ordinary cat, but with a flickering appearance about it as if it were in an old motion picture. It continued. "I am Schrödinger's cat, perhaps best known for the paradoxical nature of my existence. Imagine if you will an opaque box in which a cat is stationed beside a poisonous vial above which is a hammer poised to strike. The decay of a radioactive particle will determine whether the hammer strikes the poisonous vial, and hence whether the cat lives or dies. This particle may or may not decay when the door to the box is opened. "The intriguing aspect of it though, is imposing the rule that one cannot observe the cat means you may regard the cat as existing in both of it's primary quantum wave forms, and hence the cat can be seen as both dead and alive. "You confuse me, but I sort of understand this." Bentley said "And wouldn't you know it," the cat went on, "Mr.Schrödinger actually thought it would be a good idea to carry out this experiment in real life. *Pmmft* What that man was thinking I don't know, but what I do know is that the experiment went wrong." "How so ?" Bentley answered, by now too engrossed in the cat's story to wonder much about how cats could talk anyhow. "Well, everything was going well until he opened the door of my box, which until then, as you know, I was happy being a lively/deadly cat. Unfortunately Shrödinger had a piece of macaroni that he had been eating that morning lodge itself uncomfortably in his eye, (you know how absent-minded professors can be), and so he only had one eye open while opening the box. This unfortunately meant that only half of me could be observed, and half of my waveform collapsed to a live cat, the other to a dead one." "That sounds...pretty bad." Bentley said. "But tell me, how did you get here, and if you're Shrödinger's cat, then where is Shrödinger ?" The feline paused a moment and took a small breath, then continued. "Sadly, Shrödinger's waveform decohered a long while ago...if you know what I mean. He was a good man, even if he didn't give me his leftover macaroni." "I'm also glad you asked how I got here. You see, after the botched box experiment I was sent to live with Einstein, who in an effort to travel backwards in time so as to pay his library fines accidentally created a portal to an infinitude of parallel universes." "I, being the curious creature I am wandered into this portal and found myself here, in a world drastically different from the one I am used to. I am assuming you are also not from around here ?" "No, I was stuck here millenia putting counters on rods for some lunatic named Compadre !!" "Ah, I see...must be the Grimpals." "The Grimpals ?" Bentley weakly sighed knowing nothing may ever be normal again. He looked briefly at the entrance of the tunnel and wondered why Compadre wasn't banging on the door, but decided not to question it. He needed a break from that fellow anyways. "Yes, the Grimpals. They are the overlords in this universe, and pride themselves very greatly in their intellect, which is frankly nonexistent. Nonetheless, they have massive counters like the ones you are making on which they write their I.Q.'s. Their I.Q. usually only requires two digits to describe, and in exceptional cases, three, but they insist on making a show of themselves. They figure people will think their I.Q. is large if the counters are large. As you can tell, they aren't too bright." "I gathered as much." Said Bentley. "Say- why hasn't Bentley come to pound the door ?" "Oh he knows where we are, he's just playing it cool at the moment." "Really ?" "Yeah, folks like Compadre are just androids bent on forcing people to make these counters, he actually can't harm you according to his programming." "Well, that's good to know but he's still scary." Bentley recalled their first meeting, the chill that ran down his spine when he shuck Compadre's cold hands. The cat went on: "Perhaps I ought to show you the way out of here." "That would be great, you have little idea how long I've stayed in this place !" Bentley said, following the cat around the tunnel of echoes. "Trust me, I know how long you have stayed here, and I have direct intuition of far greater time spans." "Ok." said Bentley, "But why are we going in circles in this hallway ?" "We are not going in circles, as it may appear." said the clever feline, "But-" The cat's voice was cut short as a cloud of smoke and wood chips billowed from the tunnel made from the bathroom to the hallway of echoes, and a commanding voice declared: "You two, stop at once !" It was Compadre. In the dimly lit, smoke shrouded tunnel Compadre's eyes appeared to glow a cool blue, as he calmly strode forwards, heading towards the petrified pair of faces. Bentley realized that Compadre was after them after all, and... be continued... Category:Blog posts